Nintendojo was provided a copy of this game for review by a third party, though that does not affect our recommendation. For every review, Nintendojo uses a standard scoring criteria.

By the end of the day, most people are ready to blow a gasket. The alarm clock didn't go off at the right time, the shower only had cold water, or the coffee from Starbucks was burnt-- whatever the case may be, a standard day is an exercise in restraint. With Stop Stress: A Day of Fury, developer Abylight hopes to create an outlet for such mounted frustrations. However, if this is the game that people choose to play at the end of the day to relieve themselves of stress, we may find a higher violent crimes rate in America.

Visually speaking, the game leaves quite a bit to be desired. Given the file size limitation of WiiWare titles, it is understandable why developers may need to cut corners on occasion; however, looking no further than the excellent LostWinds demonstrates just how a game can still look excellent even given the file size limits. So, when compared to a beautiful title that is also available for WiiWare, Stop Stress just doesn't quite cut it. With that in mind, developer Abylight still did well with the cut scenes, offering a distinct art style that conveys the emotional turmoil of the character. When experiencing gameplay, however, enemies and environments often look blocky; had Stop Stress been a retail title, it would have been condemned outright. Given that it is on WiiWare, however, and knowing full well how poor titles can look with the service, it gets the job done.

In all respects, however, the audio is completely obnoxious. The same sound bits are used over and over for a multitude of characters, the music sounds like a ring tone from an early nineties cell phone, and the main character's chuckle/giggle thing becomes all the more annoying. It's hard to enjoy a game that you can't stand to listen to, and Stop Stress is a great example of what to do.

The lackluster visuals and the poor audio would be a bit more forgivable if the gameplay were decent; however, that just isn't the case. While developer Abylight may have been going for their own version of the PC title Postal for WiiWare, they definitely came up short. Presented in the first person perspective, the Wii Remote is swung and flicked in vain attempts to have the game register an object being struck or thrown, though rarely does this work out. Not only that, but movement is also poorly handled-- likely to save on space, the game requires the player to press a direction on the D-pad as to where they would like to go, in a context-sensitive way. So instead of walking forward and backward, and strafing side-to-side, as would make sense, movement is handled by going to little lit-up dots on the floor. In the end, it makes the game feel cheap.

There is little reason to recommend Stop Stress: A Day of Fury, especially given its higher price-point. While the developer no doubt had the best intentions for a creative title that would allow gamers to let loose all their stress from the day, the game only seems to generate more, resulting in little more than an ironic title.